


You and Me Will Retire to the Sea

by tadpole_party



Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, I want to call it an edge of the world au, I’m so sorry, M/M, and that’s what counts, but it was fun to write, but it’s sweet, but that sounds too intense for what it actually is, these all feel a little out of character, this fic is literally me just projecting, this is a little heavy, this is odd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28973829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tadpole_party/pseuds/tadpole_party
Summary: A graveyard, an inn, and a lighthouse guard the ocean from the shore. This is a story about the five people who take care of them.
Relationships: Dr. Henry Edgware/Antigone Funn, Eric Chapman/Rudyard Funn (hinted), Georgie Crusoe/Jennifer Delacroix
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	1. An Introduction: The Meeting of Five People and the Inevitability of Death

If you walk for long enough and far enough, you will reach the end of all the roads. And you will see an inn. And you will see a graveyard. And you will see a lighthouse. And beyond that you will see the sea. 

The innkeeper will invite you in. He will ask for a story, tell you to write it down if you can. He will take your coat and your hat and he will ask if you would like to spend a night or two. He will take payment if you offer, but he doesn’t require it. All he asks is that you choose a rock from the beach or a shell or a piece of glass. He says that he will keep it on a shelf, something to remember you by. When you come back, you can have it from him. A little token of who has come through. 

You sleep well that night. The following morning, you will sit in the graveyard. You will think it is beautiful. There are flowers. There are trees. The greenery makes it hard to see just how long the graveyard goes on. You imagine it is for miles. If you are lucky you will spot the gravedigger. She will say hello. If you are even luckier you will spot the gardener. He will not speak to you so it is not worth it to try to begin a conversation. Do not look for the mortician, but if you do find her, ask her about her day. She likes it when people ask about her day. 

You will sit at the seaside and if the day is nice enough you will meet the lighthouse keeper. If you start a conversation, she will talk to you. If you ask, she will tell you a story. You don’t have to ask. She tells a lot of sad stories during the day. You will look out into the vast and she will sigh. And you will go into the ocean. 

And they will find you again. The mortician will prepare your body. And the gravedigger will prepare you to rest. And the gardener will plant hydrangeas over your grave. And the innkeeper will throw your token back into the sea. And the innkeeper will tell your story over the midnight radio. 

This is a truth. This is a fact. But it wasn’t always. 

Once a young woman had walked to the edge of the Earth. She had looked out at the vast sea and looked at the dirt beneath her. And she was deeply afraid. Like the world on fire, like a lung full of water, like beating on the sides of a cage. A primal fear. She did not go into the ocean. 

Instead she looked at the lighthouse. Empty and decrepit. She thought it looked lonely. She took it as her home. 

It became her place. Her center. She planted a fruit tree in its backyard. Laid her books upon its shelves. Worked her radio. Told her stories. Played out her routine. 

She was awake for the sunrise. And as it came, she would greet it. Then she would walk down to the beach. She would collect the bodies. Waterlogged and lost, poisoned or drowned or murdered or elderly. 

The end of all things, like any other wildness, gives gifts back to its caretakers. 

She burned the bodies. Blessed them in their death. It was what she could do. And she would tend her fruit tree and she would make her meals and she would sleep. And everyday as evening fell she would walk into her lighthouse and turn on the light. 

She would start the radio. Broadcast it out into the vastness. She would read stories. That was what the lighthouse keeper was. She was the storyteller and the watcher. She had a job. And the ocean thanked her. 

The lighthouse keeper stayed that way for a very long time. Watching the people travel into the emptiness on boat or raft or sail. She knew that they could not be stopped. There is something attractive about the ocean. Some would come just to see it. Just to be amazed by the reality of something that seemed infinite. And she would watch. And she would tell stories. And she would burn bodies. 

Until one day she didn’t. 

The lighthouse keeper had seen the siblings come into town. They were squabbling as siblings often do. They had been told that this is where you come when you have nowhere else to go. 

They sat together on the shore the entire night. Neither slept. 

The sister had looked at the brother. The brother had looked at the sister. 

“I do not want to go into the ocean.” The brother had said. 

“I don’t either.” The sister had agreed. 

So they didn’t. Instead they had sat and stared out into the vastness. As the sun came up the sister had seen the bodies on the beach and had been alarmed. 

“No one cares for them, Rudyard.” The sister had said, moving towards them. The brother had grumbled and followed her. 

The lighthouse keeper had been offended by that statement. “I care for them!” She had said, running out of her lighthouse. Her voice felt different during the day. It was louder. Things were more real. 

The brother and sister had jumped in surprise. 

“Can we help you with them?” The sister offered. 

And the lighthouse keeper agreed. 

They buried the bodies together that day. The brother’s name was Rudyard. The sister’s name was Antigone. The lighthouse keeper introduced herself as Jennifer. Her own name felt odd in her mouth. 

And there was a graveyard at the end of all things. 

The mortician prepared the body. Antigone loved them. Did not want them burned. Wanted them returned from where they came. Down into the precious earth. 

The gardener planted the flowers. Rudyard loved them. He loved them for their individuality, for their simpleness. He liked the way people would look in wonder at his garden. 

The lighthouse keeper read her stories. 

This was the way of things. Until it wasn’t. 

The lighthouse keeper saw her first. Jennifer felt as if she saw everything. She would talk to the ocean. It never answered. She didn’t especially mind. 

So the lighthouse keeper saw them. An old woman and a young woman hobbling down to the beach in the early sunset. 

The lighthouse keeper had not yet turned on her radio. Instead she watched the pair. The old woman was about to die. The young woman did not want her to. She turned to her radio and pulled out a book and began to tell her stories. 

She walked out of the lighthouse at the first sign of light. She sat down next to the young woman. 

“Hello.” The lighthouse keeper said, voice tired from the night. 

The young woman had not seen her sit down, but she did not flinch in surprise. She just turned her head. 

“Hi. Do you think you could help me bury her?” The young woman asked. 

The lighthouse keeper liked her then. 

“Yes. I would love to.” She had said. 

The lighthouse keeper woke up the mortician and the gardener and together they had a burial. The young woman’s nana. Her and her nana had seen everything but the ocean. They figured it was the last thing to do. 

The young woman had nowhere else to go. She watched the mortician collect the bodies. She watched the gardener plant his flowers. She spent a night with the lighthouse keeper, watching her read into the radio. She watched the three of them dig the graves, it was a collective task, none of them wanted to do it. She knew then what her place must be. 

The next morning, she woke up and walked to the far edge of the graveyard. She took one of the gardener’s shovels with her as she did. And she began to dig. 

The gardener found her at work. 

“Georgie, what are you doing?” He had asked. 

“I am digging their graves.” She had told him. 

He had nodded. “I’ll tell Antigone and Jennifer.” 

And that was that. At the end of all things. A garden and a lighthouse. Together they sat. It was a quiet thing. A little sad. Joyful at times, but solitary. 

Until it wasn’t. 

The gardener had noticed it first. And he had bristled at the sight of it. The weather had started to warm. The gardener was finally going to be able to take care of tomatoes properly. Which is why, one evening, he was deeply disturbed to see a man building a rather large house. It was where the gardener had planned to replant his tomatoes and he was very cross about his foiled plan. 

It took the new man one day to get the house built. It was an impressive and efficient thing. It took him one more day to get a well installed. Then the new man had a sign put over the top of his house, ‘Chapman’s Inn’ is what it said. 

The mortician was fascinated. The lighthouse keeper was amused. But the gardener. Now, the gardener was appalled. 

The gardener had stormed in that first day and demanded to know what this new man thought he was doing. 

The new man looked at him oddly. He had been told that when you need to hide you go to the ocean. He hadn’t realized that it seemed to be where a great many people went to die. This new man had no interest in dying. So he set up an inn. 

He had told the gardener that it seemed as if the people coming to the ocean had everything they needed except a place to stay. That he was going to provide that. 

The gardener found this insulting and avoided this new man, this new innkeeper, for a good while.

Nonetheless, the innkeeper found himself falling into the routine of the place easily. The gravedigger had introduced herself first. The innkeeper liked Georgie. They had a sort of rivalry. But he could tell she was glad to have someone more to talk to. She told him about her three other companions, that they were a much more quiet sort than her. 

The mortician introduced herself after a week. She told him that she had to make sure he wasn’t going to leave first. The innkeeper had spent a sunrise watching her work. He thought her and her work fascinating, but sad. 

It took him about a month until he managed to track down the gardener. He had walked carefully and slowly through the graveyard until he saw him. The gardener was kneeling down amongst his work. The innkeeper thought he looked calm at that moment. The innkeeper thought he looked beautiful. The gardener had handed him a tomato when he sat down. The innkeeper bit into it. It tasted so very sweet.

The innkeeper had to introduce himself to the lighthouse keeper, she did not come find him. The innkeeper wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he had heard a good deal about her. The gardener had said that she kept to herself a lot, but was witty. The mortician had said that she was a good judge of character, but had a hard time talking. The gravedigger said that she smelled like sea salt and had gray eyes and a nice voice. The innkeeper thought that the gravedigger was a little in love with the lighthouse keeper. 

The innkeeper spent a night listening to the lighthouse keeper talk. As the mortician and the gardener and the gravedigger had done before him. He was interested by her stories. She would pull them off the shelf and read carefully. Her voice broadcasted across the ocean. He thought she seemed lonely. 

They had walked out of the lighthouse that morning. 

“You do that every night?” He asked her. 

“Yes.” She had told him. 

“Do you ever run out of stories?” 

She had given him a funny look when he asked that question. As if the thought had never occurred to her before. 

“I haven’t yet. But one day I will.” 

“I have a plan to make sure you don’t.” He replied and had smiled at her. She smiled back. They spent the rest of the morning talking over breakfast. 

This seemed like a finality in the way of things. The five caretakers at the end of the road. A family of sorts. Somewhat content and somewhat happy. But I suppose change is inevitable. And change would come.


	2. A Dance: Involving Player Pianos and Sunrises

If we are to confront change, we must first start with the doctor. 

He was not noticeable at first glance. This was a common thing for the doctor and not something he especially minded. He was tired looking and ordinary. His arrival would’ve been completely mundane if he wasn’t accompanied by a bird, but even then no one was especially alarmed by him. 

The doctor had walked right to the edge of the ocean. He and the bird on his shoulder had looked out into it. He took off his shoes and waded out. Moving against the tide until he had gone far enough that despite rolling his pant legs up, the bottoms of them were still getting wet. He stayed there for a long while. The ocean violent and calming around him. 

“This is a beautiful place, Esther.” He said to the bird. 

The bird said nothing. They returned back to the shore. 

The doctor had then walked into the inn, it seemed the right thing to do. The mortician sat in the corner reading a book, not an uncommon occurrence. The doctor saw her immediately.

He walked up to her and said, with the most confidence he could muster. “Good morning.” 

The mortician looked at him and thought him interesting. His hair that seemed to have too much gray in it for how young he looked and his wrinkled clothes. She thought he looked like a pirate, the parrot on his shoulder and all, but the rest of his demeanor proved that to be far from true. 

“Hello.” The mortician said and set aside her book. The doctor tentatively sat down. 

“Eric is not in right now. But he would offer you a room if he was.” The mortician said. The doctor nodded. His bird squawked. 

“What’s their name?” The mortician asked. 

The doctor smiled. “This is Esther.” He helped the bird off his shoulder and onto his arm. 

The mortician smiled at Esther. “Hello, Esther. I’m Antigone. I’m pleased to meet you.” 

The innkeeper returned. He thought they made for an odd scene. The mortician with her long hair and lengthy dress, this exhausted man with his crumpled shirt, and the bird. All sitting together at the table. 

“Hello there!” The innkeeper said, putting on his charm. The mortician rolled her eyes. 

“Hi. You’re Eric, then?” The doctor asked. 

“That would be me! Are you interested in spending the night?” The innkeeper said, his smile not fading. 

“I would love to.” The doctor said and he was taken away. 

That evening the doctor joined the inhabitants of the edge of the world for dinner. He thought them a nice bunch. The gardener, a spindly man, built like the spiders that the doctor would learn he so very much loved. The gravedigger, short and strong with fiery hair. The innkeeper, with his dimples and pearly teeth. The lighthouse keeper, who had a tired voice and inquisitive eyes. And the mortician. 

The doctor was fascinated by her, the mortician, Antigone. The following morning he went out to find her. 

The doctor had always been an early riser. He woke with the sunrise and fed Esther. He noticed that many of the occupants were already up. He passed the lighthouse keeper on the stairs, she looked tired. He said good morning, she just waved.

The gardener and innkeeper were having breakfast. The gravedigger was sitting on the kitchen counter, drinking a cup of coffee. It was peaceful, like a scene out of a novel. It felt foreign to the doctor. 

So he walked down to the beach. And he saw the mortician. Then he saw the body. 

There was just one that day. Waterlogged and bloated. Eyes bulging out of their skull. The body was once a man. 

“He drowned.” The doctor told the mortician as he came to stand next to her. He leaned down to look closer at the body. “He’s been dead for several weeks.” 

The mortician nodded. “His name was Theodore. He had glasses, the frames were too small for his face. They ocean took them.” She said, the words didn’t quite seem directed at him, but still the doctor listened. 

And together they carried Theodore away. The doctor watched the mortician work. He knew that this was something to be done in silence. This was the mortician’s ritual, he was just allowed to see it. He considered asking her if he could help, but thought better of it. Instead he just studied her. 

The doctor thought she was graceful. Tall, with long fingers and dark hair. She wore it back into braids as she worked. There was a great deal of respect in her expression as she helped Theodore rest. Death was a sad thing and the mortician knew this. The doctor was mesmerized. 

The following evening the innkeeper asked if he would like to write down his story. The doctor had laughed and told him that it was nothing worthwhile. 

The doctor woke up. He fed Esther. He helped Antigone. And he didn’t leave. 

It was beautiful out when the mortician had asked if the doctor wanted to go on a walk with her. The doctor had agreed. 

“Why haven’t you left, Henry?” The mortician had asked as they sat underneath the shade of the cherry tree. 

“I don’t know.” The doctor had said. “I don’t think I can yet.” 

The mortician smiled. “I’m glad you’ve stayed.” And together they walked. 

The doctor asked questions, very few of the answers were satisfactory. He learned that Jennifer slept in the day because she was awake during the night. That Eric had been threatening to get chickens. That Rudyard was scared that something bad might happen to said chickens. 

The mortician had looked at him very seriously at one point during the walk. “I don’t mind working here. I like what I do. It just sometimes feels like a damnation.” She said. 

The doctor would repeat those words in his head for weeks. A damnation. What an odd way to describe it, but he understood. It was something else, something otherworldly that had made him come to this place. It was something magical, but mundane, that called him to go see what was beyond the sea. 

And the doctor stayed. 

He assisted the innkeeper. He patched up the injuries of travelers. He made a stew that the lighthouse keeper said was the best she’d ever had. He worked with the gravedigger to build a chicken coop. He helped the gardener pick green beans off the vine. And he walked with the mortician. 

He loved her. Perhaps he had loved her since the first time he saw her. Perhaps it was the tragedy. Perhaps it was the hope. But this was the reality of the situation. The doctor loved Antigone and that was a deeply frightening thing to him. 

He did not know what to do about this feeling. So he pulled out a pen and paper and he began to write about it. Every night he would write just a little more. The pages grew slowly, he didn’t mind. He was writing his story, just as he had been told to, and it was a story about her. 

The doctor would sometimes sit and say her name, just to taste it in his mouth. Antigone. The word lay heavy but loved, like a promise or a fond memory. 

One afternoon in the early spring, the innkeeper had come down the road with a cart. Every three weeks, he would make the walk to the nearest town. He always came back with a cart full of items. 

There was the regular food and necessities. There were chickens, just as he had been threatening to buy. He promptly handed them to the gardener, who gave them names and set them inside of their coop. 

There was something that the innkeeper was very excited about in the cart that week. The innkeeper was a sociable man, this being a very natural and very fundamental thing about him. He did not like the heaviness that the people he lived with carried around. He did what he could to make them smile. 

So he bought a player piano. 

It was an antique monster and the innkeeper adored it. He refused to show anyone what it was until that night. He waited until the lighthouse keeper had woken up and come downstairs before ripping off the covering and showing it to everyone. 

The innkeeper was pleased by their reactions. It calmed some of his worries, to know that at least he could make them laugh. This silly purchase was worth that much at least. 

“Let’s see if this works.” He had said, rolling the sheet music inside of it. Then he turned it on. 

It started to play. A bit out of tune, a bit odd. 

The innkeeper turned to the gardener and said, without a moments hesitation, “How about a dance, Rudyard?” 

The gardener shook his head, eyeing the piano suspiciously. 

“Unless you can’t dance? There’s no shame in it-“ The innkeeper began. 

“Is that a challenge, Chapman?” The gardener had interrupted. 

“Only if you want it to be.” The innkeeper replied. 

The gardener took his hand and they danced together. 

The doctor had looked at the mortician, as he so often did, and this time she was looking back. She held out her hand, a wordless offer. He accepted it. 

And they danced together. To the sounds of that out of tune, horrid, monster of a piano. It was perfect. 

The doctor loved the mortician then. Like hope. Like something new. Like flowers growing from his stomach and their petals falling from his open mouth. Her eyes, her face, her, the sun that he grew towards. It was overwhelming. He wanted to kiss her.

But he didn’t. Instead he focused on where his feet went. The dance. The companionship. He was so caught within himself, within her, that he didn’t even hear the gardener and the innkeeper arguing about who had stepped on whose toes. 

The mortician looked at the doctor and felt in one overwhelming moment the exact same way. Then the song stopped. The dance ended. And the people went to bed. 

But the doctor didn’t. He stayed up that night. He followed the lighthouse keeper up to where she worked. Up above the earth. And he listened. Caught up in his own pain, his own worries, the sea calling to him as it had called to so many hundreds, sometimes it seemed even thousands of others. The same calling that had been felt for all of human history. The lighthouse keeper saw this within him. And she knew that he loved the mortician and she knew that it might eat them alive. She knew that the sea did not give back the living. 

They lighthouse keeper and the doctor watched the sunrise together. She told him to tell Antigone that he loved her. The doctor had said that one day he would. 

The ocean is a fickle thing. It’s like the human heart in that way. It is messy and it is violent and it is loving and it will drown you, it will tear you to pieces. But it is so deeply calm at times. You feel it around you and it is holding you steady. Mending the parts of yourself that you didn’t realize were breaking, that you didn’t notice were falling to the ground around you. The marble statue of yourself breaking into pieces. 

The doctor confessed the next week. He had come to her, quietly, thoughtfully, like he always did. A soft sunset. The moon not yet appeared, but on its way. 

He told her that he loved her and he meant every word of it. She kissed him. 

The mortician kissed him like he was the only thing in the entire world. And in that moment, to her, it felt as if he was. As if the loneliness was swept aside. As if the ocean wasn’t going to take him from her. As if she could stop the curse of this place. As if she could stop fate. As if none of it mattered. 

And none of it did matter as he kissed her back. A desperation, a longing. Too many emotions held within themselves. Mouth on mouth, skin on skin. What a strange thing to allow yourself to love another person. 

They spent the night together. The following morning, there were no bodies on the beach. 

And time passed. Months of it. Spring ended. Summer began. And they stayed together. It was like a routine at times, the awareness of it ending. 

“Still here?” She would ask. 

“Never left, dear.” He would reply. 

What a visceral thing. The doctor built a boat. The innkeeper learned how to tune player pianos. Time passed. 

Until it didn’t. 

And the doctor found himself sitting with the lighthouse keeper one evening. 

“I have to go.” He told her.

“Yeah. I know.” She replied. 

That previous week the doctor had given the bird, had given Esther, to the innkeeper. The doctor had smiled and the innkeeper had known. He frequently dealt in tokens, they had just never been parrots before. 

Two days prior, during mid morning, the gravedigger had sought him out. She had looked up at him, angry and sad, and she had given him a handheld radio. Told him that she had learned to make them. That he was going to need it. That she didn’t want him to go. He had hugged her and said thank you. 

That afternoon he had kissed the mortician. He had kissed her for short enough that it could be taken as teasing, but long enough to be able to taste it hours later. He left her a note. Several of them. Strewn around their room and beneath Esther’s cage and in the mortuary. 

“Antigone will never forgive me.” The doctor said. Then he laughed, a remorseful, exhausted sound. 

“She might one day.” The lighthouse keeper said. “But only if you come back.”

And that night the doctor took his boat and his promises and went out to the sea. And the lighthouse keeper told people’s stories. And the gardener tended to their flowers. And the gravedigger buried their bodies. And the innkeeper threw their trinkets into the sea. And the mortician woke up the next morning and looked at the empty spot in the bed besides her and she knew. 

That evening, as the sun went down. The mortician had walked up the steps of the lighthouse. Creaky, old things, but they would never break.

She sat down at the table. The lighthouse keeper gave her the radio. 

The mortician began to speak, 

“Dear Henry, 

“I am still angry at you. I will be for a very long time. Perhaps I will be forever. I will have to deal with that when the time comes. 

“I miss you, of course, but that does not stop my anger. There was a body on the beach this morning...”

And somewhere, out in the wildness of the ocean, a doctor, disheveled, and perpetually tired, turned up the volume and sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this chapter was like *listens to pearl diver by mitski* *doesnt edit* *listens to pearl diver by mitski* *thinks about how little I know about love* *listens to pearl diver by mitski*


	3. A Monologue: Featuring a Dream and a Plea

Time, against all odds, went on. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Time just keeps going. On and on. Eternity is overwhelming. 

The summer ended. The gravedigger frowned. She did not like when the Earth became cold. To dig a hole during spring is a friendly thing, you are always in good company in the springtime. During summer it is heavy, but the air smells sweet. During fall it is so quiet you can hear the sound of your own breathing. During winter it is like carving a hole into someone’s skin. The soft flesh of them cracking and breaking beneath you. 

But this was how it had always been. The seasons continuing. How cyclical. It never came off as especially terrible to the gravedigger, just frustrating. She was, at times, sick of things being so horribly out of her control. Sick of this place. But she stayed. 

So the fall came. Everyone helped the gardener with the crop, even the mortician in her poorly hidden anger and grief. No one had seen any signs of the doctor yet, it was still unknown if this was a good or bad thing. 

The innkeeper prepared them for the fall and winter. It never got too cold on the coast, but he preferred not to go into town often during the winter seasons. He agreed with the gravedigger, it got far too quiet. But he was happy that the gardener was going to spend more time inside, the innkeeper was always pleased to have company. 

And, while all this was happening, the lighthouse keeper started a new radio segment. Not that it mattered. Not that she even knew anyone was listening. But she was aware that things would grow too isolated. People would come during the winter, people always came, but not as frequently. She did not want to run out of stories. So, for the first time, she started to share her own. 

“I didn’t always live at this lighthouse” She began. “That’s expected, of course. I wasn’t always here. I think the lighthouse was, though. I think it was waiting for someone. Hey, maybe it was even waiting for me. 

“I had a family, one much different than the one I have now. And by family I mean I was raised by a mother and her mother. And then my grandmother died. Which was fine, I dealt with it, I coped. That’s what you do. You cope. 

“Then my mother died. And I didn’t cope. At least not how you’re supposed to. It’s like, um, it’s like there’s an expected way to grieve. You’re supposed to cry and work through your feelings and plan a funeral. I didn’t do a lot of that. I buried her and all, but I didn’t grieve correctly. 

“God, that sounds silly. There is no right way to grieve, but my process was still abnormal. The day after the funeral, I went home. And then I didn’t leave for months. My neighbors thought I had died, my corpse rotting inside that old house. I had two friends at that point, this elderly minister and his husband. His husband used to be mayor now that I think of it. They were both retired, didn’t do much during the day. They bought me food when I asked for it. For a while they even tried to coax me out of bed, but I wasn’t having it. I wasn’t going anywhere. 

“I have been terrified for much of my life. But at that particular moment, I was immobilized by it. The world was spinning around me but I was frozen. Outside of my house there was violence and horrible, horrible things. Every shadow, every creak, it was the devil come to take me away. I was so aware of the danger of everything, of how easy it would be to die. 

“Fear is very silly like that. It has basis in logic, but it is so very false. Yet I stayed that way for a long, long while. Until one day I went outside. It was midmorning, the sun was shining. I must have looked like some sort of nocturnal creature, blind and pale, staggering out into sunlight, my hair wild. 

“That day I went and got a picture done of me for the very first time. I actually got two. In the first one I smiled, in the second one I didn’t. I gave the first one to the minister and the ex-mayor. I kept the second one for myself. Then I packed my bags and left town. That was probably the most terrifying day of my life. 

“And I walked. They tell you you’re supposed to walk to the ocean. There are so many legends about it. What good are they? What do they actually tell? None of them are true. The sea is unfathomable. 

“Still, I walked and walked. I walked until my feet bled and blistered and then I walked some more. In a story my grandmother used to tell me, perhaps some weird morphed version of Orpheus and Eurydice, that was supposed to be how you got to hell. You walked until your eyes strained and your feet went raw. 

“This place is not hell, I don’t think, but it does kill in the same way. 

“And there was a lighthouse. And it was lonely, but at that point, so was I. So I set up my stupid, little broadcast station. The damned radio that I had dragged all the way from my childhood home and I set it up at the top of this lighthouse. I dumped out my bag of books. I had been stupid enough at the time to think that they were all I needed. Who needs food? Who needs water? Warmth? Shelter? I had these short stories. And I began to read them aloud. 

“And now I read to you.” 

There was a pause.

“I’ll tell you more tomorrow night, okay?” The lighthouse keeper said. There was no response, it didn’t matter, she didn’t need a response. 

And on the second floor of the inn, the gravedigger turned down the volume on her little hand held radio and looked up at the ceiling. 

The gravedigger was very proud of her radios. She had learned to make them herself and she was very good at it. The gravedigger was good at a lot of things. Excluded from that list was the ability to get the lighthouse keeper to share anything about her past. The gravedigger was curious, to say the least. 

The first time the gravedigger asked the lighthouse keeper about where she came from, the lighthouse keeper had smiled. 

“I came out of the sea foam. I am Aphrodite reborn.” She had said. 

The gravedigger didn’t ask her about it again for a long time. 

Yet here was her lighthouse keeper sharing her story out into the ocean. The gravedigger thought it an odd thing, but not unexpected. Sometimes it seemed that the lighthouse keeper belonged more to the ocean than the rest of them did. Then again, it appeared that they all owed a little something to the sea. 

The next night, the lighthouse keeper continued. She moved her papers around, so quietly you almost couldn’t hear, and took a deep breath in. 

“I remember when Antigone and Rudyard came. I never told you about that either. They’ve told you. They’re very open with their stories if you ask them. 

“I thought they were routine. Another body to burn, right? That’s what I did back then. I burned them. Big flaming pyres. One more light for these damned ships to find their way back home. 

“But then they weren’t routine. I really dread to think of what happened to those two lovely people in their childhood to make them so easily fascinated by the macabre. Maybe it’s just part of who they are. But they liked the bodies. They have a need to honor them that I do not have. They seem to think the dead a little more sacred. It’s a good trait to have. 

“But they were quiet. I mean, their personalities and actions are far from it. But they both understand that there is something good in spending time alone. This stood in somewhat of a contrast to Eric. 

“I thought Rudyard was going to murder him when he first arrived. Rudyard woke me up just to tell me how frustrating it was, I think Antigone was trying to work and you weren’t having it that day. God I remember the way he whined about Eric. ‘Oh this strange man and his new building right where I was going to build a vegetable patch.’ Looking back, it’s almost funny. Oh how the tables turn, right? 

“You came before though. After Rudyard and Antigone, but before Eric. You were the one who I thought the ocean would want more than any of the others. It likes explorers. Or at least I think it does. I’m not really sure what it wants. But you had seemed much like any other traveler, you and your nana. Sadder than many, I suppose, but to grieve with every sad person I met would exhaust all the tears I have within me. I sat with you in your grief anyways. 

“You seemed too whole for the ocean not to want to take you. I was wrong about that too. I’m wrong about a lot of things. You hide it the best, though. Eric thinks he hides his fragments better than the rest of us, but it’s not true. He’s too lonely. You weren’t like that. You gave off such a sense of completeness, even when you were grieving. Yet you stayed. 

“That first month was difficult, you had buried your last family member. I remember how you wandered the place like a ghost. Walking in step with Rudyard, Antigone, and I, but not really saying much. You slept in any place you could hide. For a while I was convinced you weren’t real at all, as funny as that sounds. 

“Then you gave yourself a job. That made you better. Time made you brighten. I thought you were going to leave again. When you became happier. I thought, now she is pleased, now she will leave us. But you didn’t.

“Georgie, I’m so glad you stayed. Even if you are tied to this place like the rest of us. There’ll be more to this story tomorrow, but for now, enjoy this which you’ve tried to pry from me. For all I know, maybe you’re even listening.” 

The gravedigger, who was very much listening, just laughed. She closed her eyes and went to bed. She dreamt that night of girls with sea foam on their lips and pearls for eyes.

It was a quiet day, the chill of the cold settling in further. It was decisively winter by then. It sank into the bones of the caretakers by the sea. Weeks passing. The mortician took to bundling herself up as she went to retrieve the bodies in the morning. The gardener moved inside, which tended to depress him, but the innkeeper’s insistence on making him laugh helped. The player piano grew unhappy with the changing of the weather, forcing itself out of tune, the sensitive old thing that it was. The gravedigger had to retune it. 

The lighthouse keeper wrapped herself in blankets and walked up the lighthouse steps to read. 

The mortician had shared her letter first, as she always did. Sometimes they were better than others. This was not one of those better days. She was tired when she spoke, the exhaustion and desperation tangible on her lips. She was lonely too. She didn’t like sleeping alone. She hoped that Henry was safe. She wished he would come home. 

Things we always lonelier during winter. It got too much under your skin. The lighthouse keeper and the gravedigger danced around each other with their feelings. A silly thing, almost uncharacteristic of them. They felt as if they had all the time in the world, what’s another turn or two without confessing. Time moved on. 

“I wasn’t supposed to love you.” The lighthousekeeper said into the radio. 

“Sometimes I think I’m not supposed to love at all. I am the doomed protagonist, right? I am the tragic heroine. I am chained to this lighthouse. I am Andromeda waiting for the sea to swallow me. Would that make you Perseus? Or maybe it was Theseus. I could never remember those awful men’s names. They all blurred together. 

“Nevertheless, here I am. With my feelings. And there you are. Oh, my burden, my beloved. I don’t think I’d be able to say this to your face. Did you know I write all of this beforehand? I plan these out. I could never read all of it. I cross out bits and pieces as I go. Things I couldn’t share. 

“Still, what do I know of love? I am not real. I am made of ocean breezes. You are real. You are powerful. You are alive. Everything terrifies me, but especially you. 

“How could I reciprocate to something as full of life as you? How could I match that? You once held my hand, I don’t even remember why. But I remember the warmth, the roughness. Another human being, whole and willing, connected to me. I trembled in your grasp. 

“Perhaps you do love me back. Or at least harbor affections. Love, a dirty word. Then what? I don’t think I could ever care for you the way you want me to. Not as I am now. I sold myself to this lighthouse, you know that. You sold yourself to those graves. We’re all just coming up with permanent fixes to our problems. We are trapped here, Georgie. I’m starting to grow sick of it. 

“I am too soft. I do not know how to speak. People like to hand me their emotions on silver platters, like pig’s hearts. I’m never sure what to do with them. Meat is too bloody in the mouth, I never cared for it. 

“Still, I hand you my emotions, hell, my own heart now. If not to you, then out to the sea. A monologue. Maybe someone’s listening. Maybe Henry’s not drowned and is out there hearing me whine. Maybe you’re listening yourself. I hand you my love. I am frightened. You do not have to reciprocate. These are just the words I was too scared to say to you in person. Take them as you will. 

“With love. Maybe even always yours, Jennifer.” 

The next morning was quiet. It felt unfamiliar in the gravedigger’s ears. The world was so still, so steady. The lighthouse keeper’s fear, the lighthouse keeper’s vulnerability seeping into the morning, the gravedigger could practically taste it in the air. 

She thought of her Jennifer’s words. Her quiet desolation. The gravedigger wanted to reach out to her, hold her face between her hands, and tell her that she was real. As real as this moment. As real as the earth tilting on its axis, as real as the pull between you and I. But she didn’t. Instead she laid in bed and listened to the nothing. 

She found herself there again hours later. Waiting, wanting. For God knows what. For a promise? For an escape? For an excuse? She didn’t know. She listened. 

“I dreamt of you,” The lighthouse keeper began. The gravedigger heard her take a shuddering breath. 

“I dreamt of you and me. We waited to die together. You know how in dreams the oddest things make perfect sense? They all fall into place, they are facts, no matter how strange. This was one of those things. You and I waiting in line to die. 

“Then we had reached the front of the line. You held my hand and we went through the doors. And it was violent. That was the immediate part of the dream. The violence was a fact. People eating one another, ripping each other to shreds. It was horrifying. Like wild animals. Stripped of humanity. 

“I looked at you in this dream. Into your pretty eyes. I offered to eat them. Then I lifted up your hand and asked if I should eat that too. You pushed me to the ground and ripped me to bits. You ate me whole. And I wasn’t afraid of you while you did that, not how I should’ve been. I had never trusted you more in my life than in that moment. 

“It gets blurry from here. I do not remember what came after. What the details of our mutual devotion, our mutual destruction was. The next part of the dream I remember was waking up next to you. We were in a bed and I turned to face you. You looked so vulnerable. So human. This was even scarier than the dying, than the violence. You turned to me and asked me to forgive you. I could not figure out what for. I kissed you, soft and slow. Then I woke up. 

“God, I do not want to know what this means. I am far too scared of it to want to know what it means. I have heard that it is not especially strange to want to be enveloped by what you love, to let it swallow you whole. But I don’t think I want it like that. I do not think I want you like that. 

“I want you in the kindness, I want you laying next to me in bed, holding my hand. I will not get this. But, Georgie, I at least wish I would stop dreaming of you. 

“That’s all. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow.”

The gravedigger sat in her bed, shaking. That ever tilting planet crashing down on her head. She looked at her hands, they trembled. 

The gravedigger put on a coat and ran out the door of the inn. Damning the cold and the darkness as she went. She ran all the way to the shore. Ran until she was standing right at the edge of the ocean. 

“Why?!” She yelled out in the abyss before her. “Why do you do this to us?! Why won’t you let us go?!” 

The wind whistled in her ears. The waves reflected the stars above. 

“Please! Let her go! Let us go!!”

The ocean roared. And then it listened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha yeah *projects onto fictional characters*

**Author's Note:**

> I have mixed feelings about this, but I figured there was no harm in posting it. This fic has an odd sort of tone to it so like,,, any thoughts?


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